Lightened-up salad also a dessert sparkler
| • | Grilling 101: basics, secrets |
By Elaine Magee
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OK, so no one asked me to lighten up this recipe. But I thought it might be fun to make over this potluck pretzel salad for the Fourth of July. The "salad" is more like a dessert with a crushed pretzel crust and layers of no-bake cheesecake and fruited Jell-O.
We made this lower in calories and higher in fiber by using higher-fiber pretzels and a lot less melted butter or margarine for the pretzel crust (I deleted the sugar and added lite pancake syrup to help with the lost moisture). The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup of butter and I cut this down to 1/4 cup of less-fat margarine (melted) plus 2 tablespoons of lite pancake syrup. The Jell-O layer was lighter and higher in fiber because I switched to sugar-free Jell-O instead of regular, increased the frozen raspberries a little, and added blue-berries as a topping. I also switched to light cream cheese and light whipped topping and reduced the sugar by one-third for the cheesecakelike layer.
This salad/dessert is still delicious but with 40 percent fewer calories, 60 percent less fat and saturated fat, 80 percent less cholesterol and double the fiber!
The original recipe contains 255 calories, 15 g fat, 10.4 g saturated fat, 34 mg cholesterol and 1.5 g fiber per serving.
PATRIOTIC PRETZEL SALAD
For the pretzel crust:
For the cheesecake layer
For the fruit layer:
For the blueberry topping:
Preheat oven to 325-degrees. Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with canola cooking spray.
Crush pretzels by putting about 4 ounces of pretzels into a quart of half-gallon-sized sealable plastic bag. Place the bag on a flat surface and pound gently with the flat side of a meat mallet until pretzels are coarsely crushed.
In small bowl, combine crushed pretzels with melted margarine and pancake syrup. Press into bottom of prepared baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes then cool for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine light cream cheese with 2/3 cup sugar by beating on medium-low speed, scraping sides of bowl after about 10 seconds. Fold in the 8 ounces of whipped topping. Spread this layer over cooled crust making sure that it reaches all sides of the baking dish (so the Jell-O mixture doesn't leak to the bottom and make the pretzel crust soggy.) Cover the dish with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate.
In large bowl, combine the sugar free raspberry Jell-O powder with boiling water and stir to dissolve the powder. Stir in the frozen raspberries (the frozen fruit will help cool down the Jell-O). When the Jell-O mixture is nice and cool and starting to thicken, remove the dish from the refrigerator and gently pour the raspberry mixture over the cream cheese mixture, spreading to cover most of the cream cheese layer. Cover dish again and refrigerate until set (about 2 hours) and ready to serve.
Cut into about 18 squares and serve each square with a dollop of light or fat-free whipped topping, if desired, and a 1/8-cup scoop of fresh blueberries.
Elaine Magee is a registered dietitian and author "Food Synergy." Find out more at www.recipedoctor.com.
